Indian Cab Company Uses Biometrics to Improve Security and Service

By guest author and 1M/1M member Pinky Thakkar

Meru Cab, the largest taxicab company in India, needed an effective way to identify and monitor its more than 5,000 drivers. To ensure high-quality service, the company terminates its agreements with drivers who seriously violate its customer service standards, and blacklists them for future employment with the organization.

In the past, some blacklisted drivers had attempted to rejoin the company by changing their names and driver’s licenses. Since India lacks a national identification number (like Social Security), it was difficult for the company to reliably verify the identity of its drivers.

This is both a security and a service issue, because the company couldn’t be sure who it had employed, and customers couldn’t really know who was driving them.

Meru Cab knew something needed to be done, and decided on a biometrics approach. The company chose the PersonWeb fingerprint identification software from 360 Biometrics because of the system’s speed, accuracy, scalability, past projects and commercial viability.

The web-based system captures and stores the fingerprints and photographs of the company’s drivers, making it easy to detect blacklisted individuals instantly. When such an individual attempts to rejoin the company, the PersonID system checks the fingerprints against the existing database and instantly indicates if the driver is blacklisted.

360 Biometrics successfully integrated the PersonID platform with Meru’s driver management system, which runs on Oracle Siebel CRM software. That software is used to manage the entire lifecycle of its cab drivers, including recruitment and training. 360 Biometrics also worked closely with Meru to customize the system to its specific needs. Nilesh Sangoi, CTO of Meru Cab Company, says “The biometric system has helped resolve an important business problem and helps us in improving the level of customer service.”

Meru Cab can now manage the entire lifecycle of its drivers, including recruitment and training. The company has a guaranteed way to identify blacklisted drivers, which is critical to ensuring security and maintaining its strict standards of customer service.